I've worked on hundreds of laptops and never had one with a hard drive this difficult to change. Thanks for the video.

Very much appreciated! Been a technician for 15yrs and this is the worst notebook assembly I've seen.

Fun Fact: Dell had a contest for who could make the absolute worst laptop design ever. The winner made the N5110.

WTF???? The person who designed this model needs to be fired!!!!!

Here it is 13 years later (August 2023) and I was given an old N5110. It's an old i5 with 6gb of RAM, but with more RAM and an SSD, it's still a pretty good laptop for my grandkids just entering high school. I've replaced dozens, maybe hundreds of hard drives, but this was the first N5110. It a pain, but I've seen worse. Thanks to your video, it was fairly easy.

Thank you! Wow, I can't believe they buried the hard drive this deep in a fairly modern laptop. Your video was very helpful.

Another satisfied customer -- I used these instructions to repair my wife's laptop. Thanks for the tutorial!

soon as i lifted the lid to the Ram compartment i knew i was in for a full dismantle to get to the hard-drive. I've got enough experience to handle it alone, but to have a walk-through available as a preview - gives you the reassurance that you are not gonna run into any trouble along the way. Thanks for this upload !

My god.... nice vid... whoever approved this designed needs to be fired.

Thanks Josh. Just slammed a Samsung SSD into an N5110, it's a rocket now. I appreciate you taking the time to make this video - it's really not that big of a deal to tear down and put back. Took me 30 mins after watching your vid.

I am utterly flabbergasted that this is what you have to go thru to replace a hard drive. Whoever designed this laptop deserves to be slapped.

Four years after this was posted, I needed to remove this drive. Really happy to find this very clear video. Thanks much!

I had to change my Hard Drive and it worked like a charm!!! Thank you so much for the PERFECT instructions!!

Mannnnn, I wish I found your video 10 minutes ago. I did NOT know the top with the metal casing popped off. I watched a video with a guy who removed the entire bottom to get to that area. This was so much simpler. Definitely saved this one.

Excellent video - the best I've ever followed (and I have followed a LOT!) You were easy to understand, slow enough so I could keep up (pausing quite often) but not so detailed that I fell asleep. I congratulate you on an instruction video that this 72 year old could follow and successfully replicate.

Thanks. You have one of the more helpful tutorials on HDD replacements on You Tube. So many details, especially if you're doing it for the first time. All that just to replace the one component most likely to be replaced or serviced during ownership. I also have an ASUS laptop where replacing the HDD takes 5 minutes, removing one flap.

Great Video. My dell installer missed out appointment and I assumed I could replace this easy peasy, however, did not realize that dell was taking a page from Apple by making things a bit more interesting working on a computer.

Thank you! Saved me from a few hours of headache. This build is insane... Who came up with the idea and who approved it? :D

As a person whom has never tinkered with anything like this, I Just used this video to replace HD in my Aunts old laptop. Slight hiccup with hard drive removal but thought outside the box and emerged victorious. Lol. And am so proud of myself, it works. Extremely useful. Steps were very easy to follow. Thankyou very much

excellent description of the disassembly of an extremely complex device

I completely destroyed my laptop. It was amusing ripping away at all this stuff for about 30 minutes. Thank you for showing me where it was located. I finally got it out!!!

Thank you Josh 2 1/2 years later and your video still rocks

You have my gratitude for this video Josh. Needed to extract my sister's hard drive since it crapped. I managed to get through it and have a little fun with it on the way.

I bought one of these when they were new, but always put off changing the drive to a solid state for this very reason, I reckon the person who designed this used to be an engineer at Ford...... so yesterday I dragged it out of the cupboard to see if it still worked, and I followed this video and changed the drive to a SSD and installed Win 10 without a single problem in the installation, best the thing has ever worked!

Thank you so much for this video ! My daughter's dell n5110 hard drive died and I ordered a new one, thinking it would be very easy to replace. Who knew ??? Your video was extremely helpful.

Really good video. After looking at the Dell service PDF that had me bouncing all over, Googled it and found this. Just removed and installed the new HDD in about 1.5 hrs. taking my sweet time. Every step was well documented to make this task very easy. Installing Win7 now. Thank You very much.

I have to thank the author of this video as it saved me to send my N5110 to Dell service to replace the hard drive, instead I did it by myself which was way convenient. So, Thank you very much!

This is a very well done and very useful demonstration, as this model laptop is more complex than many

Thanks for the video, very well prepared. Without it, I could never have.

We did it! Thank you so much! Other videos I saw went so fast and were so hard to understand I wasn't about to attempt this. I reallly appreciate your level of detail!

This has to be the most work to change a hard drive on a laptop. Great video. Thanks for creating it. I will mention one thing for others as a heads up. There is a small 1"x 1/4" circuit board near the front motherboard screw and directly beside the white two pin cable you have to unplug that will pop off. It is at the 5:55 mark in the video. It took me a few minutes to figure out where it went.

Thanks so much for this video! After around 7 years I finally got around to looking up how to remove the hard drive on my old Inspiron so I could recycle it. Really appreciate your help. One thing to note.... I opted to not remove my monitor, resulting in my inability to remove the motherboard at first. It turns out that you need to at least unscrew all the four screws for the monitor piece, at a minimum (the left-hand side being relevant here).

I used this video to change my hard drive to SSD. Great video well explained I think this is the best video on the subject, many thanks for posting.

Suggesting magnetizing your screwdriver was a really great tip.

Solid tutorial - as others have mentioned, well narrated/lit/good pace. Insane that someone thought it would be a good idea to mount the HDD below the motherboard.

Really helpful, well explained, no annoying music, really good tutorial video.

Thank you very much! My uncle's computer HDD died and I had to help him by following your steps! Good job! Great video!

I think it is easier to remove the display (and after closer inspection, it may be required), I find that it gives more room to work and can also make the whole case a little shaky due to the way the weight is distributed once the motherboard is taken out. Thanks for checking out the video, and I hope it was lots of help :)

CMOS battery is CR2032, worth changing at the same time! Excellent clear video, would like normal speed reassembly

Just wanted to say thanks for posting this, without it I am sure I would have wrecked my PC trying to replace the hard drive! Peter

My N5110 has 12 screws on the underside of it. Two of the screws are under little pieces of rubber that can be removed with a safety pin or push pin.

My sincere thanks for taking the time to create this guide. It helped my so much to replace an N5110's SATA disk with an SDD. Thank you again!

Excellent vid thanks!. When it came to lifting my hard drive off, there were two strips of double sided tape underneath which made it slightly tougher to lift off though.

You don't need 'two' magnets to magnetize a screwdriver. Take on magnet place it about an inch or two from the tip and slide the magnet off the driver to the end (the magnet is stuck to the metal and you're dragging it off to the end). Do that 2-3 times and it will be way more magnetized than putting 2 magnets and leaving it for awhile.

Thank you very much for the detailed instructions and the great video, much appreciated

Thank you so much for this video. It definitely helped us out of a bind. We couldn't have fixed our laptop without your help!

Great video, Josh. Helped a lot; saved me loads of time. Replaced old spin drive with an SSD, and husband is much happier!

This video was just what the doctor ordered, you did a super job with this. Many thanks.

Thanks so much! Our Inspiron has been sitting forever because I didn't want to recycle it with our files inside. You're a life saver!

Thank you. That was by far the most complicated Dell Laptop I have had to remove a HDD from in a long time.

Unbelievable all that work to get to the hard drive. I'm really considering cutting out a hard drive access panel.

thank you. but why do they do that.. this is the one hardest harddrive replacement i think

AWESOME video Josh! Thanks a million. I just swapped a dead HD following this video. It would have taken me A LOT longer without it. A note: When attempting to unscrew the 2 screws that hold the right screen hinge, the two plastic posts they screw in broke. I was very careful but... due to poor design these posts are weak and can't take the torque of a tight screw. I've had to order a new bottom cover. Funny thing on ebay and someone is selling a bottom cover with the 2 posts broken.

I know this video is a tad old, but I personally prefer to use a cupcake tray instead so that I could sort the screws according to type and order of removal. That way they wouldn't get lost or mixed up.

Josh, can you please also give the reverse assembly non-forwarded video. That would help to be sure of not making any faults... many thanks

yeah, this particular laptop uses a socket G2. so that's what you want to look for when ordering one. just have to unscrew all the heatsink related screws, and the cpu just pops right off like a desktop one.

wonderful, i like the way you open the laptop and changed HDD step by step. Thank You

Not too happy with going through all this just to replace a hard drive, but I have to say your video is the best out there. It was very easy to follow (using pause several times, of course :) ). The fast-forward was a bit much, but I managed. You did an excellent job. Thanks. P.S.--if you have cats, close them off from where you are working. They love to pay with little tiny screws. :)

I've removed 200 HDD's from 200 laptops, and this is by far the worst. Why would Dell do such a thing? I will never recommend Dell again.

thank you, thank you, thank you! Fried my motherboard on this dell and had to get the hard drive out. Really Dell? what a pain. earlier models were user friendly. Several sites had the step by step frames, which I liked, but yours was the real deal. To reinstall I had to do it in steps to go backwards so yes I'd have appreciated the slower reinstall. I'm not a techie but can hold my own on a pc. It's off to the [still covered under Costco] warranty store and my hard drive contents are safe on an external drive ~ thanks to you Josh!

Thanks, great video. I just installed a SSD to this Laptop. Great Improvement.

Thank you.. Today I successfully replaced my N5110 hard disk by watching your video.. Thanks a Ton...

Dude, you are awesome. Upgraded the wife's N5110 HDD to SSD. Thanks a bunch.

HP are so easier... thanks man, saved me tons of broken plastic.

Their are to white plastic lugs holding palm rest assembly frame visible where DVD slots in. Push these to get started on removing frame. No need to try to insert flat screwdriver. Thanks for video great help.

Very helpful would like to see the slow reassembled

Great demo, i followed it and got replaced my HDD with no problems.

great tutorial, I am on the verge of moving, so decided to take out the hard drive of my old Dell and discard other parts. The screw heads are all damaged so I couldn't reassemble it :-/ but at lease I could take out the hard drive. Phew !

Thank you! This video helped me a ton! I had no idea this model was such a PIA to swap the hdd. Clean install is running now. You are the man.

Thanks for this great tutorial guide. What a nightmare. They put it in the hardest place to get to. Lots of things could easily have gone wrong. Much appreciated. Mike

I have this laptop and does it allow SSD placement?

I have this to do for a friend, and this is a great confidence boost. The rare earth magnets is a great tip for holding screws. Thanks!

I was unaware that you could actually change the CPU's in laptops lol. But best of luck to you and thanks for watching!

thank you for this video! i was able to fix my daughter's laptop not have to take it to a shop in town for the hard drive replacement.

Great video. I have the same laptop and I've been experiencing some issues with the hard drive and some errors. I also plan to add an SSD to this laptop but I'm going to replace the original hard drive with a 1TB one for storage in the optical bay.

Thanks! I upgraded to a 500 GB Solid State drive. Your video was perfect--I was able to use a free ghosting program, and it started right up perfectly!

Use a guitar pick instead of a flathead along the edges if you don't have the spudger tool, you won't damage the case

i'm gonna be upgrading my i3 in the laptop to an i5. thankfully videos like these exist. i've taken apart & repaired a few other laptops (last years inspiron 15 amd) so this shouldn't be too difficult. it sucks that the hard drive is all the way under the mobo, but seeing as its 1TB i can't see myself replacing it anytime soon... unless it dies.

Thats it! I've done it many times. i also rmoved the cpu and cleaned the thermal pase and replaced it with Arctic Silver 5 applied on both cpu and heatsink per AS instuctions and cleaned the internal fan... CPU temps has droped 12 degrees Celcius!!!

We need to track down the creator of this design and interview him. I would LOVE to hear why he choice this design.

Thanks so much! Your directions were very helpful and allowed me to replace a busted HD with a new SSD.

Just wanted to say thanks - used this to replace the HD with a SSD last week. Excellent

Thought that was just going to be 5-6 screws and pop it out like a PS3, 20 minutes later I've finally got it out. Thanks

I can’t believe it worked! My computer was quite old. I found this to be a good time to replace the CMOS battery. Cr2032. I will NEVER open this unit again. What a pain!

10. Disconnect the spk cable connector, the wifi antenna cables, and finally remove the cmos cell battery (recommended if replacing hardware, you will have to re-enter service manual in bios later) 11. Remove the 5 board screws 12. The motherboard can be now removed (no need to remove the display at all!!!) 13. remove hard drive screws and finally hard drive..

Thanks for the video. Helped the repair of the mother in laws laptop no end.

My HDD stopped working - I have it all ready for the new HDD to go in. Your video was magic thank you - please may I have put it back together - Thank you

This is the second Dell that had a hard drive buried inside! This one WAY buried! And, whoever replaced the hard drive before, never put the brackets back on! No worries, that sucker in secure enough! "Aint goin no place"! What were they thinking?? Is it that hard to cut a hole in the bottom and put a screw a plate on? The Cmos battery, wouldn't be a treat either, which is why I replaced that, as well. Wow, what a FU design. Great video, thanks!!

5. Remove the keyboards and disconnect all internal rebon cables 6. You only need to remove 6 screws on the back, not 10! (see page 32 on service manual) 7. Remove sdcard holder 8. remove the screws under the keyboard 9. remove the palm rest (the main case cover)

Your guide gave me to confidence to attempt this, usually I hear the word remove keyboard and ribbon and I'm like No way, Nah uh never. But I managed it but at first the screen wouldn't come back on and I got four loud beeps which meant that the ram wasnt in properly. It now has 8GB of ram and 250gb SSD and I have not decided which version of windows I'm putting on it yet either win 7 or 8 but never windows 10 as I hate that Thank you

Your video was great. Excellent step by step. My screw mounts on the right hinge were also broken. Thank a lot.

You saved me a LOT of time and possibly my sister's laptop which I was able to restore thanks to this video. Thank you so very much.

Perfect instructions Josh. PIA but quite doable.

thanks for posting this; luckily my laptop was otherwise shot, so I could break it a little while I took it apart! Next time I buy one, I'm going to pay attention to where the HD is!

Thanks for this video. such a big help on such a pain in the arse laptop. Wish i'd disconnected the monitor as the hinge broke like everyone else but it ok. Can't believe the improvement.

Thanks for the video. Have performed this task 3 times now, still miss removing one of the screws holding the keyboard on & I hate the catch mechanism that finally secures the keyboard (always feels like I'm going to dislodges a keyboard tile!). Dell really have built these down to a price.

Unfortunately after you start the first few minutes, you realized you got into quick sand and you can’t follow

Thank you for the video!! Very helpful! Diamond Computer, Hungary

Thanks much. Detailed and well shot.

Did everything exactly the same very carefully. Changed disk to ssd. Putted back together. Laptop Bricked :/. Dell never again.